Steam is one of the main digital gaming platforms for PC , and with what games currently occupy, many times having to download them becomes really tedious, even when you have a good Internet connection. In this article we are going to give you a series of recommendations so that you can accelerate the download speed to the maximum , with the aim of reducing waiting times when downloading games on Steam.
When you buy a digital game on Steam, we all want to be able to play it immediately, but the downside to digital games is that we have to download and install them first. Steam downloads and installs simultaneously so we save that step, but unfortunately many times the download speed is very slow, even lower than what our Internet connection can give.
Let’s see what we can do about it.
How to improve download speed on Steam
It doesn’t matter if you use a top-of-the-range gaming PC or a 500-euro computer to play, when you go to download a game on Steam one of the first things you should do is close all the non-essential applications that you have open, especially the Internet browser because it could be consuming bandwidth even without you noticing.
Likewise, you must make sure that just when you are downloading a game, the automatic Windows updates have not skipped, significantly reducing your download speed. To do this, go to Settings -> Update and Security and check that no updates are being downloaded. If they are, you can pause them from there.
Similarly, in the Steam client, open the options (Steam -> Preferences) and go to the “Downloads” section. There, make sure you have the correct region selected or as close as possible to where you live (this greatly influences the download speed on Steam because it connects you to one or another server). It is also recommended to disable the option “Limit downloads while streaming” and “Allow downloads while gaming.”
On the other hand, in this same menu, make sure that you do not have download limitations activated because obviously this will reduce the speed when downloading (Limit bandwidth to -> Unlimited option).
Once this is done and before closing the Steam preferences, go to the Web Browser tab, where you can delete the temporary files (cache) and cookies of the browser integrated in Steam, something that also especially helps to load the store more quickly. application.
On the other hand, you can also access the Windows task manager (right click on the Start bar -> Task manager) and in the “Processes” tab, sort by Network to see if there is something consuming bandwidth (and close it) .
The Windows 10 Game Mode
Although it may seem silly, Windows 10’s game mode can also help improve download speed on Steam, and is that among other things it serves to pause other activity on the computer by prioritizing resources to games. It will not have too great an impact on high-performance gaming PCs and especially if you have an SSD, but on more modest equipment it can help a lot to have better performance and even download speed.
To activate it, go to Settings -> Games -> Game Mode and activate it.
